


Job Description

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: SGA - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major Lorne is really good at his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Job Description

If you ask how Major Lorne has lasted this long on Atlantis when plenty of lesser officers run screaming, he will generally get a funny look on his face, rub the back of his neck, and mumble something about how Sheppard seems to like him, kind of afraid to find out why. If you ask Colonel Sheppard the same question, he will smile widely and say something about Lorne that is simultaneously mildy complimentary and vaguely insulting. He will probably use the word "scrappy." Neither of them will ever mention a midnight conversation in the SGC's commissary, before either knew who the other was, when Sheppard hadn't slept in 26 hours and Lorne was actually in a position to give advice. Sheppard doesn't know about, and Lorne will not mention, another conversation shortly before the Daedalus left Earth—more of a drive-by, really, as various people pushed through the corridors under the mountain.

The truth is, Lorne has stayed on Atlantis this long because he's really, really good at his job.

He's most of the reason that Sheppard's paperwork gets completed, correctly, on time, and primarily by Sheppard himself. He double-checks schedules and rosters so that everybody gets downtime and there's always at least one team on duty for rescue missions. He updates Sheppard's calendar and pre-screens mission proposals and organizes meetings and holds office hours. John Sheppard leads by example and by force of personality, so Evan Lorne leads through quiet efficiency and a mission mandate straight from Jack O'Neill himself.

Sheppard tends to hide while other people are scraping the shit from the fan, and Lorne not only knows where to find him (usually), he's developed a good sense of when to leave him be and when to track him down and nudge him to finish the AAR. Lorne is an expert at running interference with Caldwell and Landry and the other brass who don't like how Sheppard runs things, and while he can't yet bluff Weir perfectly, he's working on it. Lorne is there to clean up after Sheppard's adventures, win or lose, and yeah, the Marines don't respect him as much, and the scientists certainly don't tolerate him as much, and he's probably not on the fast track to his own promotion any time soon. Several people have pointed this out to him.

"I'm just doing my job," he tells them.

Like when Sheppard's team comes back through the gate full of holes, for instance. Lorne quietly activates the ready-room team, rearranges Sheppard's schedule and his own, starts the paperwork and makes sure the colonel made it into the infirmary before he lost his shit. He makes his report to Weir, but stands close enough to a screened-off bed to make it seem like he's reporting to Sheppard, too, but the colonel just isn't listening. He doesn't look behind those screens, and when Caldwell blusters in asking questions, Lorne invites him to the military commander's office to go over the intel, and doesn't let on that he knows where Sheppard is at all, or McKay for that matter. He waits for Sheppard to leave McKay's quarters before radioing him with any questions.

Sheppard doesn't ask about it. Lorne doesn't tell.

Because before he left for Pegasus, General O'Neill told Lorne, "Just keep him out of trouble, Major, okay?" And Lorne is very good at his job.


End file.
